A midday counter-battery patrol for an hour and a half with Lt Stuart Francis Bett. Not a great time by the sound of it, with the weather and E27’s engine both being ‘rotten’. Still, makes a change from ‘dud‘!
Log Book
Date: 14.9.18 Time Out: 12.00 Rounds Lewis: - Rounds Vickers: - Bombs: - Time on RE8s: 156 hrs 30 mins RE8: E27 Observer: Lt Bett War Flying Time: 1 hrs 30 mins Height: 3000 Course/Remarks: C.B.P. Weather & engine rotten.
2/Lt Stuart Francis Bett
This was Greg’s first patrol with 2/Lt Stuart Francis Bett, with whom he would fly several times in the next couple of months.
Stuart Bett was born on 11 November 1899 to Mary Bett, and so was some nine months younger than Greg. He survived the war, and was no doubt delighted that Armistice Day was on his 19th birthday. He was injured a few weeks later, on 17 December 1918 – playing rugby! – and wasn’t present at the B Flight Officers’ Christmas Dinner. Injury may have been the cause of his absence. Maybe he went home.
After the war, he graduated with a B.Sc. degree and on 1 October 1923 joined the Indian Service of Engineers an an assistant executive engineer in the United Provinces (of Agra and Oudh) – roughly present day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Promotion to executive engineer followed in October 1932. Later, he transferred to the central public works department in August 1933 as a divisional officer. Stuart Bett died aged only 37, on 6 June 1937, in Dehra Dun. His widow was Ethel Margaret Fisher Bett.
Thanks to Margaret Sheard for sourcing information on Stuart Francis Bett.